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Amid high security arrangements Indian Premier League (IPL) 20-20 tournament is all set to begin today in Mumbai.

IPL on Youtube

In Indian Premier League 2010 starting today with eight teams are participating in it. Authorities have confirmed the proper arrangements of security.

This forty three days tournament of 60matches will start with the match between last season winner Deccan Chargers and Kolkata Knight Riders.

In only two years of time IPL has gained a magnificent success from its viewers. Dance of cheer leaders, Bollywood music and star presence has increased its viewership remarkably. This has also increased the cost of tickets this time going as up as 50,000 rupees.

Shah Rukh Khan’s KKR has only won nine matches out of twenty eight will begin as under-estimated team.

On the other hand Hyderabad’s Deccan Chargers became the surprise winners of second IPL tournament.

Due to security concerns and controversies regarding Pakistani players the excitement was quite low for this time of IPL’s tournament.

There were speculations of attacks from al-qaeda during the tournament of IPL, commonwealth games and hockey world cup which made the spectators worried about their safety.

This concern has made the authorities more apprehensive for the safety of the players as wellas the spectators.

Lalit Modi,IPL commissioner has said that they have done their best to safeguard the series and assures the smooth sailing of tournament.

On Friday, the news broadcaster has ended their protest of the third season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) after accepting the deal with the cash-rich Indian League Authorities. Rajdeep Sardesai, editor in chief of IBN network told on his Twitter account “The news broadcasters end boycott of IPL coverage.

IPL 2010

Let the show begin.” Before the IPL schedule the good news came as today the champions of IPL 2009 Deccan Chargers vs. Kolkata Knight Riders in Navi Mumbai on Friday night.
According to latest news by the IPL 2010, “There has to be a minimum of a 10-minute delay from the live telecast by the official broadcaster before telecast of any match footage by a news broadcaster.”

However concerned with the information the “news broadcasters will be allowed to telecast an exceptional event (newsworthy event of an exceptional nature) occurring during the course of a match with a minimum of a five-minute delay from the conclusion of the livetelecast of such exceptional event.” The fifteen point guidelines also involves a clause that the latest news and current affairs broadcasters will be permitted a maximum of 5.5 minutes of live IPL coverage in a single day with every match, “including not more than 4.5 minutes of deferred live coverage of match play and not more than 1.5 minutes of deferred in-stadium entertainment footage”.

Prior the main satisfaction was a diktat from the IPL authorities that the broadcasters which do not have rights now could telecast the live IPL coverage only half an hour after a match. There is also another area of disagreement on the latest and fresh coverage which has now been sort out. The news channels are also allowed to telecast an average of two minutes of coverage per half an hour of broadcasting broadcast “subject to not more than 5.5 minutes of fresh footage per match”.

The deal also tells a maximum of two repeats of coverage primarily telecast by the news broadcaster would be allowed per hour of telecast. With concern to IPL 3 broadcasting by News Channels, Niranjan Shah, the league’s vice chairman told IANS “It’s good that we have come to an understanding withthe news channels.

It’s a nice way to start the tournament. I find the channels are already full of news concerning IPL.” So now watch and enjoy the first match between Kolkata Knight Riders vs. Deccan Chargers of IPL 2010.

A startup is now offering to take the hard work out of creating mobile applications and even of porting them to the iPhone, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile platforms, all through an online service that gives novice developers simple templates for various types of businesses and organisations.

With an eye to software novices, Mobile On Services’ BuildAnApp service tackles a problem that has plagued professional mobile developers for years: Unlike on the Web and in the world of PCs, there are many different platforms to write for if you want to reach many mobile users.

Once a customer has gone through the steps on the BuildAnApp site to create a new application, Mobile On uses its proprietary software to package the app for three of the major smartphone platforms and also develop a mobile-optimised Web site, said company co-founder Scott Pearson.

Users get 30 days free to design the application and populate it with content such as news, restaurant menus and click-to-dial phone numbers. After that, they pay to bring new content into the application. Mobile On will submit it to Apple’s App Store for US$19.99, including resubmissions if it is rejected.

The Minneapolis company designed BuildAnApp for small businesses, retail stores, nonprofit organizations and professionals such as doctors.

To build an application, users simply pick the template for their type of organization, choose from among typical types of pages to put within the app, and populate the app with information.

Then they can select people they want to alert to the application, and Mobile On will send e-mail messages to those people with a link to a download page. Users with a supported phone can then download the application directly. The applications can be kept private with access passwords.

Mobile applications are getting a lot of attention, but much of the capability a small business needs to offer customers can be delivered via a mobile Web site, which can be updated with new information for no additional charge, industry analysts said Tuesday.

However, Mobile On’s Pearson pointed out a few advantages to having an app instead of relying solely on a Web page to reach customers.

Apps let consumers access and use information even when they are out of range of the cellular data network, they tend to look better than mobile Web sites because they are optimized for the hardware platform, and they usually move faster than the mobile Web because they operate locally, Pearson said.

For most small businesses, a mobile application will be primarily a tool for keeping existing customers loyal rather than attracting new ones, Pearson acknowledged.

Apart from sending out the notification e-mails to current contacts, Mobile On Services won’t handle marketing of the apps against the growing tide of mobile software, such as the more than 100,000 applications now on Apple’s App Store.

Analysts liken the emergence of a service such as BuildAnApp to the evolution of Web development from pure HTML coding to easy-to-use design services such as GeoCities and Blogger.

“It’s certainly a signal that mobile applications have arrived,” said Avi Greengart of Current Analysis. However, a mobile app still isn’t as critical to a small business as a Web site, he said.

Unlike a Web site, a mobile app sits on the home screen (or extended home screen) of the consumer’s phone, In-Stat’s Allen Nogee pointed out. An application can create more presence and recognition than a mobile Web site to which a user has to navigate in a browser, he said.

A pizza restaurant and a small clothing store created applications during BuildAnApp’s closed beta test, which just concluded, Pearson said. The pizza place’s application includes, among other things, the menu and a button for clicking to call the shop and place an order, he said. The clothing store shows pictures of new items in the shop.

BuildAnApp’s 16 templates include ones for a real estate agent, a school, a sports league and a religious organization. There is also a template for “other” that includes a wide range of page types selected from the other templates.

The company is also developing a “pro” version of the service for skilled developers creating more sophisticated applications, Pearson said.

However, Mobile On doesn’t plan to support the kind of sophisticated development provided by companies such as Rhomobile and Appcelerator, he said. Those companies offer online app development for developers working in languages such as Ruby, JavaScript and HTML.

“Our intent is to provide mobility to the masses,” Pearson said. “It gives these small organizations a way to have a mobile presence without spending a lot of money.”

By the end of the year, Mobile On plans to add Google’s Android platform. Other plans include adding support for Nokia, Symbian and Palm; adding APIs (application programming interfaces) to bring existing Web and database content into the applications; and letting customers integrate their applications with online services such as Facebook, Twitter and the OpenTable restaurant reservation system.

Though BuildAnApp has just entered its open beta test, which is likely to continue into the first quarter of next year, Mobile On is now charging after a customer’s 30-day free trial. Users can pay $7.99 for a one-time content or application update or pay $14.99 per month to make as many updates as they wish. Unlimited updates for six months are available for $59.99.

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It is indeed ironical that Pune, the epicenter of swine flu, which has claimed 12 of the 24 deaths in India, out of the 1,390 confirmed cases, and from where the first victim in the country was reported, also happens to be home to one of the world’s largest biotech companies developing a vaccine to fight the Influenza A H1N1 virus.

A team of 25 scientists are racing against time as part of the global battle to develop the vaccine against the spread of dreaded disease. “The vaccine sample is ready and we will begin animal trials by next month (September) in Holland. The phase I of human clinical trials will begin by December-January and subsequently, phase II and phase III trials will be carried out”, said Suresh S Jadhav, executive director of Serum Institute of India, the flagship company of the Poonawalla Group.

No vaccine is yet available available anywhere in the world for the H1N1 virus. The earliest batch could become available in the US by September or October this year. After the successful human clinical trials, Jadav the Institue would seek government regulatory approvals. “If everything goes as planned, the commercial production of the vaccine may begin by March-April 2010”, Jadhav said, adding that the process was time consuming and the company would not compromise on following global standards in manufacturing the eagerly-awaited vaccine. The Institute is one of 21 worldwide asked by WHO to produce the vaccine. It’s the only one in India.

The advisory committee on immunisation practices at the US Centers for Disease Control has recommended the order in which vaccines should be given: pregnant women; household contacts and caregivers for children less than six months of age; healthcare and emergency medical services personnel; all people from six months through 24 years of age; persons aged 25 through 64 years who have health conditions associated with higher risk of medical complications; all others in the same age-group and people above 64. The last group is supposed to still have some immunity from the influenza A pandemic in 1968 and is supposed to be least at risk.

Till August 14, WHO regions reported 177,457 laboratory-confirmed cases of new-H1N1 influenza virus with 1,462 deaths. The H1N1 strain has become the dominant inlfuenza virus in the world, comprising 71 per cent of all such cased detected globally. Some scientists say that H1N1 incidence will rise sharply in October-November, mimicking the seasonal flu which has a low impact in summer months.

Akhilesh Chandra Mishra, director of National Institute of Virology, said the virus was spreading rapidly but the government health machinery all over India has been geared up to tackle the pandemic. “All the 17 regional laboratories in the country have been upgraded and provided with reagents and machinery to work as H1N1 testing centers,” he said. Mishra said a second wave of the swine flu could not be predicted accurately. “It may be milder or stronger and there are chances that there may not be a second wave at all,” he said.

Although the H1N1 flu entered India late, it has spread like a bush fire. The first deaths created a wave of panic with state governments shutting schools, malls and movie theatres. The price of a simple face mask rose from Rs 5 to Rs 150 in some cities. Even though the number affected in the country is increasing, the fact is that the total number of people that swine flu has killed worldwide is lower than the number of Indians who die in a single day from tuberculosis and diarrhea-related diseases. Jai Narain, head of the regional communicable disease office for WHO told media that “the amount of frenzy or hysteria is totally disproportionate to the overall reality of the disease.”

Much of the public’s concern may be alleviated if the vaccine is available. Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech International, Panacea Biotec in New Delhi and Cadila Pharmaceutical in Ahmedabad are also in the race to develop the vaccine. “On August 18, we are meeting top Drug Controller General of India and Indian Council of Medical Research officials to speed up work on developing the vaccine in New Delhi,” said Krishna Ella, founder chairman and managing director of Bharat Biotech. The company is a WHO pre-qualified manufacturer of hepatitis B and other vaccines for supply to Unicef. He said about 40 scientists were engaged day and night at the company labs and human clinical trials to develop the vaccine would start by October.

Rajesh Jain, joint managing director of Panacea Biotec, said the firm was readying its manufacturing plant at Lalru, near Chandigarh, for mass production of the vaccine. Panacea Biotec is the second largest vaccine player in India. It has WHO pre-qualification for pentavalent vaccine, Oral Polio Vaccine, and hepatitis B vaccine. “There will be a huge demand which can be gauged by the extent of the spread of the disease in India and the world”, Jain said, adding it was not possible to give the time-line for manufacturing the vaccine.

Apart from the vaccine, Oselta-mivir or Tamiflu is the medicine reported to be effective against swine flu strain if taken within the first 48 hours of catching the virus. In response to the outbreak, the Indian government has set up testing centers around the country and asked drug firms such as Ranbaxy, Hetero, Natco Pharmaceuticals, Cipla and Strides Arcolab to stock about 7.2 million Oseltamivir tablets to handle any emergency situation. This would be apart from the 30 million doses that the government would stock. “We are in constant touch with drug companies and they would be able to supply enough drugs to the government by next week,” Vineet Chaudhry, joint secretary at the health ministry said.
The health ministry has allowed, among others, Super Religare Laboratories, Dr Lal PathLabs, Metropolis Health Service and Quest Diagnostics to import test kits for H1N1. “The ministry has decided to import another 22,000 kits at a cost of Rs 1.75 crore,” V M Katoch, director-general of Indian Council of Medical Research, said. That’s apart from the 27,000 imported earlier. Arvind Lal, chairman and managing director of Dr Lal PathLabs, said, “We will import kits… But we already have the real-time polymerase chain reaction and other facilities to test swine flu because the same technology is used to test HIV, Hepatitis B and genotyping of TB.” A senior health ministry official said the process to approve private labs has been started. At present, each test costs Rs 5,000, while a positive case costs Rs 10,000, since the test has to be repeated. Government hospitals provide this facility free. Private labs and hospitals would charge its patients. Most states are also naming additional hospitals, including private ones, which can treat swine flupatients. Delhi has identified 13 hospitals.

Preparation and precautions are necessary as WHO has termed the virus unstoppable. Aided by frequent flyers, it has spread to 163 countries in nine weeks, compared with earlier influenza viruses, which took an average of 25 months to distribute globally. The summer in the northern hemisphere is the time when influenza viruses normally lie low, waiting for their turn to strike as the winter sets in. Hopefully, the combination of steps taken by the state and central government would be able to contain the virus from doing too much damage.

The CPI(M) general secretary, Mr Suravaram Sudhakara Reddy, called upon the activists of the All India Student Federation to fight for better education. He was addressing the 73rd foundation day celebrations of AISF, here on Wednesday.

Mr Reddy has charged the state government with working in favor of the corporate educational institutions rather than for the uplift of poor students. He also accused the government of issuing permission for 670 Engineering colleges, which have not been providing proper education and facilities. As a result, the students were coming out with graduation certificates without any proper training. Instead of paying Rs 30,000 to the corporate Intermediate colleges for providing better education to the best poor students, the State government could have provided better facilities and education in government colleges” he added.

The former MP said that the Union government should have perused the Yashpal Committee report thoroughly and the useful advices should have been implemented for the sake of better education. He mocked the Union Minister for Human Resource Development, Mr Kapil Sibal, for failing to keep the promise of integrated education within 100 days of UPA government formation after the recently held general elections.

Prof. Dr Kasim, national vice-president of AISF and Mr Srujan Kumar, AISF state president, also spoke on the occasion. A large number of AISF members and students participated.